Selling and Buying a Home
Real-life real estate advice, plus home decor, gardening and more.
Welcome to the Selling and Buying a Home blog.
My name is Leah Ingram, and, together with my husband, I’ve bought and sold eight homes in the past 20 years. One of those homes we built new.
My husband and I are also the DIY type. We’ve renovated nearly every home we’ve owned. This includes upgrading bathrooms, redoing a kitchen down to the studs and painting a home, top to bottom.
In addition to my personal experience as a homeowner, I’m a writer that has covered real estate for national publications.
For more than a decade I wrote about celebrity real estate, home-buying trends, money-saving tips for moving, curb appeal and more for NBC Universal and Parade Magazine.
Now I’m bringing my aspirational but authoritative and approachable take on selling and buying a home to my own blog. I’m going to share with you what works (and what doesn’t ) when selling a home as well as when you’re buying a home.
Rather than telling you what you want to hear, I’m going to tell you what you need to hear if you want to get a good price on a home you’re selling or buying. Basically, I’m going to cut through the BS and give you real-life, attainable advice that’s applicable to both buyers and sellers.
Finally, I’m also sharing advice on home decorating, maintenance and other topics related to home ownership. This includes how to fit an area rug under a bed or why you might want to paint an accent wall in your home.
However, this is hardly my only blog. I’ve been covering personal finance for nearly as long as I’ve been selling and buying homes. Once we were suddenly frugal. These days we’re real sophisticated consumers.
You’re welcome to read my other blog The Real Sophisticated Consumer here.
Hurricane Preparedness Hacks
Hurricane Preparedness Week has come and gone — it was in the spring — but this past year, even in the late summer, we were lining up our hacks to prepare for yet another hurricane. So, while we’ve been down this road before, it’s always…
Top Paint Brands for Sale at National Retailers
For the longest time, when I wanted to buy a top brand of paint for a painting project, I had to go to a specialty retailer. This was usually a small-scale painting store that focused on one or two brands. It was the same when…
Selling Parents House After Death
If you have sell a parent or relative’s house after they’ve died, then you should be prepared for quite an adventure. My husband and I went through this a few years ago when his great aunt died. She’d lived with his mother for decades. Once…
10 Minute Tidy
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How to Create a Vintage Christmas Aesthetic
According to Pinterest Trends, the vintage Christmas aesthetic is super popular. Not just old timey holidays but 70s Christmas and 90s Christmas. Makes sense since bootcut, bellbottom jeans are back. But I digress. Here’s what I know: people are searching for where to find vintage…
Safety Tips in the Kitchen
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Midcentury Modern Furniture
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How to Buy Plants with EBT
Did you know that you can buy plants with EBT? Well not all plants but the kinds that produce food. That’s because the food stamps SNAP program is all about helping low-income people eat. So, it’s food-centric. In fact, you can use SNAP EBT to…
What You Need to Know if You Inherit a House
I know that when the sad day comes that my mother has died, I will inherit a house. It will be her home, on a beautiful lake in Maine, that will be the ideal vacation getaway. While I really don’t want to think about that…
Who am I?
I’m Leah Ingram, homeowner seven times over, author of 15 books and journalist, formerly covering real estate for NBC Universal and Parade Magazine.